"Truly, it is the indescribable sweetness of contemplation which you give to those who love you. In this you have shown the tenderness of your charity, that when I had no being you made me; and when I strayed away from you, you brought me back again to serve you and commanded me to love you." The Imitation of Christ

Sunday, 21 August 2011

Thinking Ahead...

We should all be planning for our futures - and I'm not talking about pension plans. How we spend eternity is far more important than that.

The Curt Jester has been giving it serious consideration. However, he has really big plans. Not only does he intend to become a canonised saint, but he wants to be declared a Doctor of the Church. In furtherance of this laudable ambition, he has calculated that he needs to move to Avila and become a Carmelite...

3 comments:

I hope to become a canonized saint, God willing, or at least an official Servant of God. I'm already a permanently professed Lay Carmelite, so that should help :-)

Alas, I fear that my ambition is not entirely pure -- that it still has an element of fear of being forgotten in this world, rather than complete trust in God. (And the fear of being forgotten is huge in me, especially since I have never married and have no children.) Pray that I gain that complete trust in God and teach it to others before I die. Thank you.

To this end, I have made the heroic act - where you say that all plenary and partial indulgences are given up for the benefit of the Holy Souls.

Plenary indulgences for oneself aren't easy - there's the bit about being free from all attachment to even venial sin - and they don't last long, as, no sooner do I leave the confessional, than something irritates me, or I get uncharitable about someone...

I figure that any minor defects in the conditions needed for a plenary indulgence will be overlooked if the indulgence is for some poor forgotten soul. And then, of course, having gotten the soul into heaven through my prayers, I have a friend who will be eternally grateful... and neither God nor the saints are outdone in generosity.

No, it doesn't sound too calculating. I think that making the heroic act is truly heroic -- and easier to do than making plenary indulgences for oneself.

However, I was brought up in a time and way that really de-emphasized indulgences, and they still seem a little alien to me: almost like the whipped cream and cherry atop a milkshake -- nice if you like that sort of thing, but not truly necessary for salvation. I like to pray for the souls in Purgatory, especially the most abandoned, and for some historical figures who committed suicide whom I hope could use my prayers. (OK, so I'd like to be the person who prays Lizzie Siddal, Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, Sylvia Plath, Charles Boyer, et al. into Heaven...) But I almost never think of using indulgences, whether plenary or partial: it just does not occur to me. (And when I do use indulgences, it is because someone has reminded me about them.)

Silly me! I will tell you, however, the intention I make daily in my prayer for the beatification of Servant of God Frank Duff (founder of the Legion of Mary, of which I am a member): that my father return to the Church, that my mother and brothers become Catholic, that Tony Blair (!) become a saint (whether canonized or not I leave to God's discretion) and that Ed Miliband (!!) and his wife Justine Thornton (!!!) have a happy marriage and that they and their children enter the Catholic Church. (OK, if I were British, I'd probably vote Labour.) But I think Frank Duff is probably very bemused in Heaven listening to these intentions every day from me, since I do not yet notice any movement of my family or the Miliband family towards the Church. There is still time, however. But I do get pretty darn impatient waiting :-)

Year For Priests

About Me

I have given up describing myself as a young Catholic woman, but I don't quite feel ready to call myself "middle aged." Is there anything in between?
I came back to the Church in September 1992 after what I consider to be a Damascus Road conversion, and guess you could call me a Trad by inclination.
I'm a single woman living and working in the world (as a Science teacher), and I took private vows in December 2002.